


Childish Things

by orchid314



Series: Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018 [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Prompt Fic, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 04:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15135413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchid314/pseuds/orchid314
Summary: Some things from childhood are not so easily forgotten.





	Childish Things

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Детские воспоминания](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16601159) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



> Written for July Writing Prompts. _Prompt 1: One Thousand and One Nights: Have one character tell a story to another._ This is my rather loose interpretation.

Watson groaned. The day had begun cold and rainy. A whistling draught slipped in through the gap between the window and the sill and sent him burrowing deeper beneath the covers. 

"Yes, Doctor, I believe we've conclusively proven that yours is the worse bedroom of the two."

"Are you going to get up to close the window or will I need to?" Watson asked, his face buried in his pillow. 

"Never mind the window. Come to my room."

"Yours? You hold a fire to be the source of all things holy. God, how do you stand the heat in such close quarters?"

"It concentrates my mind and helps me think."

"Bedrooms aren't for thinking. Besides, anyone would be cold with their tenderest bits exposed like that. Go close the window and come back under here."

"John, I very much appreciate your solicitude for my brain, but it's safely ensconced within my skull and needs no protection from the elements."

But Holmes wisely acceded to his companion's demand and rose to secure the window. When he returned, Watson opened the coverlet to let him in and Holmes spent some moments battling the sheets on his side of the bed until they were adjusted to his satisfaction.

Finally comfortable, he sought the promised warmth of Watson's body and lay there for some time, absorbing it into his own skin. Then he rolled away, half reaching for the night table until his hand grasped the case there. He extracted a cigarette and lit it, watching as the smoke drifted into the watery light of the room and tinged it with a sudden melancholy.

"Talk to me, John."

"What about?"

"Anything, really. Tell me a story. About where you used to explore as a boy. What games you played at." A thought brightened Holmes's face. "Did your mother ever make you tea?" he asked.

"Of course she did."

"Describe it to me then."

"Well, let's see. My mother was a great believer in putting up food for the winter. She would send Harry and me and our cousins out to pick berries when we stayed with our grandmother in Scotland in the summer. Gooseberries, rowanberries, blackberries. All kinds. Coming back on the train, we were always positively loaded down with jars of the stuff. But it was heaven to break into one for supper on a cold winter's night."

"Hmm. Go on."

"The currant jelly was my favourite. My grandmother wouldn't let anyone else make it. She was very proprietary about it. As for tea, I had a particular weakness for lemon pudding."

"Did you? Why don't you eat it now?"

"Because I don't play rugby any longer. And the days are long past when I could eat whatever I liked!"

Holmes let the cigarette smoke spiral out of his mouth. "I shall make a point of procuring you currant jelly and lemon pudding for your delectation, my good Doctor, at some future date when you're least expecting them."

"Will you share them with me?"

"I suppose. If you insist."

They fell silent. The rain slid in heavy sheets down the windowpanes, and Watson nestled closer into Holmes's shoulder. "What did your mother make you for tea?" he asked.

"She didn't. Nurse made tea."

Watson waited to see if Holmes intended to go on.

"My mother subscribed to the firm belief that children were to be seen and not heard. And preferably not much seen either. Looking back at it, I suspect that we appalled her.

"Mycroft and I were taught independence from a very tender age. One of my earlier memories is of the nurse swaddling me tight in my cot. Don't ask me how I should recall this. I believe I must have been no more than three years old at the time. Are you listening?"

"Of course I am."

"It was an outdated tradition even then. To wrap children up like that. But you mustn't think that I minded it. In fact it was an immense protection, having one's body so neatly contained. It induced a spiritual exaltation the likes of which I've only experienced on a few occasions since, and which left me almost weeping for the bonds of long ago. When I was allowed to graduate to short trousers, I used to remember that time more than a little wistfully. It's a difficult thing to explain."

Watson thought it best to forgo words. Instead he reached an arm from beneath the covers and brushed away the hair that had fallen across Holmes's forehead. The grey eyes that looked up at the ceiling had indeed traveled far back in time.

"Sherlock. I propose a plan. Let's get up and have our breakfast, a thorough one with all the Sunday papers. I'll even see if I can cajole Mrs Hudson in to making us deviled kidneys. And afterwards we'll sit together on the settee–with the fire blazing before us. My concession to you," he joked. "I shall read you the clues from the latest puzzles that Dudeney sent over the other day. And you will most certainly take great delight in my feeble attempts to parse even the easiest ones. Come on. I've no desire to spend the whole morning in here."

Watson could feel Holmes calibrating his suggestion, measuring its contents. Finally, beneath the coverlet, he reached for Watson's hand, grasping it, searching for its familiar ridges of skin and bone. 

"John?" he asked. "However did you find me?"

"You were the one who found me, I should say. Up, up." Watson had risen and he threw Holmes his dressing gown. Holmes's eyes were still bleak, but they sought out the warmth in Watson's own. 

Holmes got out of the bed, inserting his arms into the gown and securing its belt tightly around him. "Dudeney sent over new puzzles, did he? Well, let's hope they're a bit more challenging than the last ones. I sent him a note with my recommendations for making them more idiot-proof, but then I remembered that his readers are _Strand_ subscribers, so perhaps he's better off not taking my advice after all."

Watson narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. "You're incorrigible, you know." Holmes responded with the makings of a wry grin. The day beckoned them forward. To puzzles and fires and perhaps, if the weather granted it, a walk later in the brisk air of a London afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this ficlet came from Jeremy Brett's imagining of Sherlock Holmes's childhood, described in the book _Bending the Willow: Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes_ :
> 
> "He was tied very tight as a child in the cot as they used to in those days to keep them quiet. Children were seen but not heard–especially in the Holmes household which I've always placed in my mind in Cornwall...very remote. A bleak house. Never knew his father at all until he was 21. Saw him but never spoke to him. He had an elder brother who was fat and a little bit far ahead of him. They didn't have much in common either. They were kissed by their mother on her way down to dinner, but that's all. Isolation from an early age..."
> 
> The colleague referred to in the story is [Henry Ernest Dudeney](http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Dudeney.html), a famous deviser of puzzles in Victorian England who published his work in the _Strand_ for many years.


End file.
